16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
the evening was as calm as the day, and the
llama-train was clearly in sight on the trail below.
'Let us walk down wide,' said Eduardo, looking
to his flint. 'I still have hopes.'
'Very well,' said Stephen, and they went down
the slope abreast, twenty yards apart. When
they were a stone's throw from the trail a fairsized
bird sprang from a tuft with a whirr of
wings. It was clearly Eduardo's bird and he
fired, hitting it so hard that it bounced again.
'There,' he cried, as happy as a boy, 'here is
my partridge at last: or at least what the Spaniards
call a partridge.'
'A very handsome bird, too, so it is,' said
Stephen, turning it over and over. 'And to be
sure there is a superficial resemblance to a
partirdge: though I doubt it is a gallinaceous
bird at all.'